The Many Faces of Go

version 10.0

In Number 101 of the British Go Journal Journal, I wrote a
review[1] of
version 9.0 of David Fotland's program "The Many
Faces of Go". Since then, I have been recommending
it as the best all-round Go program for someone who
is willing to pay for the best.

Version 10.0 has just been released. Whereas
version 9.0 was a Dos program (and therefore
compatible with Windows), version 10.0 is a
Windows 95 program. It works with Windows 95 and
NT, but not with Windows 3.x. It includes
everything that was present in version 9.0, and
in the version 9.0 "Deluxe Addon", with many
improvements.

It is supplied on a CD, and is very easy to install,
though it needs about 16 Mb of disk space.

If you use it with Windows NT, you may find that it runs only in 16-colour mode.
This is due to a bug, but there is a free fix for this bug, which you can
download.

Many Faces can play on any odd-sized board from
9x9 to 19x19. It can play as Black, White, both,
or neither. It can be set to use American, Chinese,
Ing or Japanese rules. It can play very fast. I
set it to play itself on a full board at its lowest
strength level, and the entire game took 14 seconds.

I tried playing against it at the highest of its
ten levels of strength, giving it nine stones, and
beat it (I am 1-kyu). This is something which I
still cannot do against HandTalk[2].
At this level, it was averaging a minute per move on my
Pentium Pro 266 Mhz [ in fact it was 200 MHz ].

I also tried playing it directly against
HandTalk[2] version 96.09;
but having limited time, I set Many Faces to strength
level 8, which is very much faster than level 10.
This game I must record as a win for both programs.
I accidentally set Many Faces to play with 5.5 points
of komi, and HandTalk to play without komi;
Many Faces claimed to have won by 2.5 points,
and HandTalk claimed to have won by three points.

The styles of the two programs are very different.
Many Faces makes good shape, and plays proper moves.
HandTalk is fond of playing near the edge of the board,
and tries to kill things which ought not to be killable.

As well as playing Go, Many Faces includes many features
not present in other Go-playing programs. These are
described more fully in my review[1]
of version 9, though they have been improved in version
10.0. It has an excellent introductory tutorial, a Joseki
tutor, three databases of openings, a collection of problems,
a problem solver, a collection of commented professional
games, and the ability to play via a modem link.

The tutorial is directed at beginners, with clear
explanations of such concepts as liberties and
connected groups. It is in the form of a Windows help
file, so it is easy to find your way around.

The Joseki tutor is the feature which I shall find most
useful. It knows a large number of joseki, and can show
not only the joseki moves, but some tempting non-joseki
moves and their refutations, and some follow-up moves.
I find it much easier to use than a joseki book.

The largest of its three databases of openings contains
over 36,000 fuseki. The requirement to handle such large
data structures is one reason why version 10.0 is only
available on the 32-bit versions of Windows. It also
allows you to construct your own fuseki databases.

There are over 200 introductory (up to 20-kyu) problems
for you to solve. As well as knowing the correct answer
to these problems, it is able to show the refutations of
the more plausible wrong answers. You can also create
your own sets of problems, and these may be distributed
freely.

Many Faces includes a problem-solver. You can apply this
either to a position which you set up for it, or to a
group which you want to analyse in the course of a game.
It is not very strong: I believe that I can do better
than it does in the same time. But a beginner would
find it useful.

It includes almost 400 annotated professional games.
You can use it to record your own games, complete with
variations and comments. Something which I find
particularly impressive is that it can record games in
either Ishi or SGF format. As it can read both of
these formats as well as writing them, it can be used
to convert between them. I know of no other program
which can convert from Ishi to SGF format, and Many
Faces makes the SGF to Ishi conversion more reliably
than the only other program I know which does this.

Many Faces version 10.0 has in one package almost all
of the features available in any other Go program.
It is suitable as an introduction to Go for complete
beginners, and has plenty to offer to experienced
players. I would not hesitate to recommend it to
anyone who has a Windows 95 or Windows NT system.
It is attractively packaged, and would make a
suitable present for a games player.

review by Nick Wedd, November 1997

The Many Faces of Go version 10.0 cost £69.99.

Last updated Sun Jul 08 2007. If you have any comments, please email the webmaster on web-master AT britgo DOT org.